You would not know it from general media coverage but, on the web, science is alive with remarkable debate. According to the Pew Research Centre, science accounts for 10% of all stories on blogs but only 1% of the stories in mainstream media coverage. (The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism looked at a year’s news coverage starting from January 2009.)

On the web, thousands of scientists, journalists, hobbyists and numerous other interested folk write about and create lively discussions around palaeontology, astronomy, viruses and other bugs, chemistry, pharmaceuticals, evolutionary biology, extraterrestrial life or bad science. For regular swimmers in this fast-flowing river of words, it can be a rewarding (and sometimes maddening) experience. For the uninitiated, it can be overwhelming.

The Guardian’s science blogs network is an attempt to bring some of the expertise and these discussions to our readers. Our four bloggers will bring you their untrammeled thoughts on the the latest in evolution and ecology, politics and campaigns, skepticism (with a dollop of righteous anger) and particle physics (I’ll let them make their own introductions).

Not an extinction event, but definitely an opening of space, new niches to be filled. The MSM used to check Last24H page on scienceblogs.com to see a snapshot of what is going on in the world of science. Now, with so many equivalent spaces, the MSM will have to use Scienceblogging.org to get such a snapshot.

I think what’s now needed is some sort of aggregator of science blogs. Something like the Last 24 Hours function on Science Blogs, but across the various disparate blogging platforms. Does anyone think this is feasible?